A Tiny Piece of Truth

Perhaps you have seen ancestry commercials on television. If so, you may be aware that there is a DNA-based testing kit available that will help the folks running the company to assist in tracking down your family history. All the customer has to do is order a kit, take a swab of saliva, and send it back to the company. They in turn will analyze the DNA they find in the cells on that swab and determine at least some of your ancestors. It is fascinating and fairly new. Some of these companies, including 23 and Me for example, have only been in business since 2006. But the science behind understanding these chromosomes has been around a long time.

Scientifically, the tiny piece of truth about your personal DNA is that you have had it ever since you were created by your mother and father. The same is true of every human being.

So, what is DNA? According to Professor Jerome Lejeune, one of the fathers of DNA research, each of us has a starting point, a tiny piece of DNA in our single-cell self, that provides all kinds of interesting information. He writes:

We know that this information is written on a kind of ribbon that we call DNA. It's a long molecule on which, under a specific code, all the qualities of the future person are defined. It measures exactly one meter in length inside the sperm, split into 23 little bits inside the chromosomes, and one meter inside the ovum; so that at the beginning of our life, we have two meters of ribbon, so to speak, on which everything is coded. To help you understand the miniaturization of these tablets of the law of life, this meter-long molecule is coiled so tightly that it fits easily on the point of a needle. Life is written in a fantastically miniaturized language.

In essence, your story is unique to you and it began at your beginning—your biological beginning (also known as conception/fertilization). This very same story unfolds for every single human being. Almost every individual has 23 chromosomes from his mother and 23 chromosomes from his father in each of his cells.

As we know, there are cases of preborn children with Down syndrome or other genetic abnormalities where an extra set of chromosomes defines them. The unique genetic code is a bit different, but their humanity is still the same as yours and mine.

These ribbons of life define who we are, and that is true for every person from the first moment his life begins and onward. The only thing that can stop the information in your DNA from continuing to define you is death. For the preborn child, the same is true.

Every human being is defined as who he is and who he will become at his biological beginning. Scientifically what this means is that we can be assured beyond any doubt that the act of abortion does kill a unique and unrepeatable person.

Every time an expectant mother enters a place where money is paid for the death of her child, when a mother ingests a chemical that may kill her baby, or when a fertility specialist kills an embryonic child in his laboratory, a tiny piece of our collective human family dies.

Sadly, there are some who are so blind to this truth that they are constantly trying to impose their version of the facts on others. When celebrities, for example, use their status to argue that abortion is “the most basic of all human rights,” they are lying in order to advance the agenda of the culture of death. Their drivel about a woman’s body or her alleged rights does not change the identity of the person who has been created within her.

And no, that baby is not like a piece of returnable clothing. He is who he is because of that tiny piece of truth in that single cell. His DNA is already telling his story at the very moment his life begins.

So when you and I tell this story and share the truth about how a human being begins, we are doing something positive to bring about an end to the most gruesome war in our lifetime—the war against the preborn child.

ALL’s Culture of Life Studies Program offers two exciting ways to teach your children about DNA and their very early beginnings. Teach your junior high school students about the incredible life of Dr. Jérôme Lejeune with this easy, one-class lesson entitled Dr. Jérôme Lejeune and Trisomy 21. And share the joy of every human being’s life with your kindergarten through second grade students with the picture book unit study Life Is Precious.